Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In Tennessee yesterday, former Ambassador Bill Hagerty won a Republican U.S. Senate primary, thanks in part to Donald Trump’s backing. In November, Hagerty will face Memphis environmentalist Marquita Bradshaw, who unexpectedly won the Democratic Senate primary, defeating Nashville attorney and former Army helicopter pilot James Mackler, who enjoyed the DSCC’s backing.
* In Tennessee’s U.S. House primaries, Diana Harshbarger won a very crowded GOP primary in the race to replace retiring Rep. Phil Roe (R), and incumbent Rep. Scott DesJarlais once again survived a Republican primary challenge.
* The Trump campaign formally requested that the Commission on Presidential Debates add a fourth general-election debate this year. Yesterday, the CPD said no, and it’s not altogether clear what the Republican operation intends to do about it.
* Facebook yesterday said it would ban ads from The Committee to Defend the President, a pro-Trump super PAC that Facebook concluded has repeatedly shared content “determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false.
* Speaking of the social-media giant, Facebook also yesterday removed a foreign troll farm posing as African-American supporters of the Trump campaign.
* In Maine, the latest Quinnipiac poll found Sara Gideon (D) leading incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R), 47% to 43%. The same poll found Joe Biden leading Trump in Maine by 15 points. * In Kentucky, Quinnipiac also found Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) leading Amy McGrath (D), but only by five points, 49% to 44%. Trump leads Biden in the Bluegrass State, however, 50% to 41%. * In South Carolina, as hard as this may be to believe, Quinnipiac found Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) tied with Jaime Harrison (D), with each garnering 44% support. Trump, meanwhile, leads Biden in the state, 47% to 42%. * And as Republican operatives scramble to get Kanye West onto the 2020 ballot, the entertainer seemed to confirm to Forbes magazine yesterday that he’s not seriously pursuing the presidency. Reminded that he won’t be on enough state ballots to reach 270 electoral votes, and was therefore running as a spoiler candidate to help Trump, West responded, “I’m not going to argue with you. Jesus is King.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
